


Threshold

by LorettaFryingPan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Introspection, episode coda, minor appearances by Nott and Beau, undertones of Molly/Caleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorettaFryingPan/pseuds/LorettaFryingPan
Summary: Alfield was finally quiet, and in the bar of the Feed and Mead, Molly's glass was empty.(A little coda to Episode 5)





	Threshold

**Author's Note:**

> Molly has a nervous breakdown over almost dying, you say? Hm, I wonder who else can relate to getting knocked tf out in a fight...
> 
> I can't find a satisfying/correct way to tag the relationship in this, so I'm gonna just throw my hands up and post it anyways.

Whatever the hell Krut had given him was something else, Molly reflected as he slowly made his way back up to the room where the rest of the group was. The intensely herbal liqueur had cleared his sinuses as surely as it had filled the rest of his head with cotton, so while he wouldn't say he was drunk-he had certainly been drunker in his life, that was for sure-navigating the stairs was more of a challenge than usual. It had done an admirable job of calming his nerves, and focusing on keeping his feet where they were supposed to be was a welcome distraction from the anxiety that was dogging him. 

The cries of townsfolk had died off by the time he had finished his drink, and when he pressed his ear to the door he couldn't hear anything from the interior of the room. Everyone was finally asleep, it seemed. 

He'd had plenty of practice sneaking around at the carnival, he knew how to navigate a room without waking anybody. He opened the door, the hinges swinging free with barely a whisper. Scanning the room to make sure Beau wasn’t passed out on the floor right in front of him-he wouldn’t have put it past her, honestly-he pulled off his boots and gingerly stepped in.

Distantly, as though everything was coming to him through heavy felt, he remembered watching Caleb run his magic silver thread over every entrance and exit to the room. Of course, that memory came to him only as his foot crossed the threshold. 

Well, there was no going back now. 

He winced internally as his foot set silently down and Caleb sat bolt upright in bed, reaching for something. Through the faint hallway light, he could see alarm and naked fear on Caleb’s face quickly morph into calm, and something like relief? He watched Caleb drag a weary hand over his face before holding it up to him in greeting. Returning the gesture, Molly walked to the other end of the room from where Beau was, making to lie down. Caleb waved again to catch his attention, and pointed to an empty bed. In response, Molly pointed back at Beau, who was curled up on the floor. Caleb only shrugged, and Molly took better stock of the room. Fjord and Jester had taken a bed each, but Nott was-

Nott was curled up on Caleb’s bed next to his knees, tucked under his tattered coat. She was so small Molly had barely noticed her. That’s what Caleb had been reaching for, he had been trying to shield her from whatever he briefly thought Molly had been. He hadn’t missed how she and Caleb seemed to orbit around each other, and he definitely hadn’t missed Caleb’s comment about living on the road, and Molly knew how it was. You stayed close to the people you could trust. If it meant that he got to sleep in a bed, that was twice a blessing.

Molly closed the door behind him and went over to the empty bed, shrugging out of his coat and draping it over the end of the mattress. Leaning over and standing back up made his head spin, so he rested a hand on the footboard and just stood for a second.

He watched as Caleb very delicately turned and climbed out of bed, patting Nott’s hair to help settle her back down when she started to wake. He blindly picked through one of his bags before producing a spool of thread and squinting at it in the darkness.

Right, the spell needed to be reset. Did it really, though? It wasn’t like they were sleeping out in a field or anything. There was the whole group of them, less Yasha, and they were in a town full of people with a Crownsguard regiment that seemed to have their heads screwed on straight. But if it made Caleb feel better he wasn’t about to say anything, he was self-aware enough to know he didn’t have room to talk about coping mechanisms.

There was the dull thump of Caleb’s foot connecting solidly with the end of the bed, and Molly remembered that he couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Stifling a chuckle, he walked over and took Caleb’s hand to guide him. He put Caleb’s hand on his shoulder, like he had seen Nott do when Caleb was looking through Frumpkin’s eyes, and was surprised by how distinctly he could feel the delicate bones in his wrist. It was only ten steps to the door, but that was still enough for Molly to take a good look at him.

He knew Caleb wasn't the strongest of their little band of misfits, but without the coat and other layers he looked dangerously thin, almost waifish. Molly could understand how that could come to be, he knew how a life of wandering exposed one to the bite of lean times and hard winters. And gods knew that Caleb could be knocked down by little more than a stiff breeze. But it was still an arresting realization, when aligned with the quiet way Caleb carried himself. Molly felt like there was something he should do with this knowledge, but damned if he knew what.

Caleb nodded in thanks and cracked the door open, which, while not much, apparently gave him enough light to work by. Molly turned and went back to the bed, and began the process of wrapping up his swords and dressing down.

Getting ready to sleep wasn't usually a ten-minute-long affair, but it felt rude to bed down while Caleb was recasting the spell he had broken. So he took extra care with wrapping his swords, and folded his clothes precisely.

Absently, Molly found himself wondering why that sort of nicety bothered him now. Before, he wouldn't have cared. Back in the carnival, he certainly wouldn't have waited up for anyone, except for _maybe_ Yasha. What made these people so special that he’d lose sleep for them?

They were alright folk, amusing, mostly useful, and rough enough to be interested in keeping a reprobate like him around, which he certainly appreciated; even Beau was tolerable when she wasn’t talking. He thought about Jester, her effervescent cheer that, for all its innocence, was somehow so magnetic. Her bright, cheerful smile was a warm thought, but unbidden the image came to him of her face not a couple hours ago, sooty, bruised, and frightened after she revived him. That led to a dark rabbit hole of thoughts, one that he had paid unnecessarily good coin to drink away. He sat down on the edge of the bed, all the thoughts that had been writhing in his mind after the fight coming back full force. He didn’t even hear the gentle chime of the bell that marked the end of the spellcasting, only coming back to himself when Caleb’s feet came into his field of view.

"Are you alright, Mollymauk?" 

The barest whisper, but against the silence of the room he could hear Caleb as clearly as if he had shouted. His Zemnian accent rounded the consonants and heightened the vowels, turning his name into three lilting syllables that Molly was only vaguely sure he recognized.

Or maybe that was the drink.

Either way, Molly nodded, checking himself at the last second so he didn’t set his jewelry ringing. Focusing on the careful process of removing metal and gems without getting them tangled, he collected himself enough to answer.

“I’m just dandy,” he replied, wrapping the jewelry in a piece of old velvet and steadfastly not looking Caleb in the face.

“Was that your first time falling in a fight?” He asked, and Molly cursed his luck to have been stuck with such keen folk. He said nothing, which didn’t seem to bother Caleb, who sat down on the bed next to him.

“I will not pry, you do not have to explain yourself to me. But I understand." 

Molly looked over at Caleb then, and the bags under his tired eyes seemed even darker. Despite them, a wry, self-deprecating smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"But it will be okay, even if right now it doesn’t seem so," Caleb murmured, so quiet he was barely more than mouthing the words. There was something in his expression that Molly couldn’t quite read, but whatever it was it left in an instant as Caleb looked away and went on. "And I cannot say I know what we're doing, but we're doing it together. We're a slapdash bunch of weirdos, but we’re here for you, Mollymauk. I am here for you, at the very least."

"You don't need to worry about me," he said, waving off Caleb's concern.  

Caleb just huffed a silent, humorless laugh. "I worry about everything. At least in your case I'd be worrying over something _worthwhile_."

Again, Molly was at a loss. Caleb reached out, grasping Molly’s shoulder. “Well. Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow will come regardless, we should try to be ready for it.”

Molly watched silently as Caleb climbed back into bed, first taking a moment to brush Nott’s hair out of her face and adjust the coat over her. As he lay down, he kept one arm gently draped across her back.

For his own part, Molly just lay staring at the ceiling. In some ways, things hadn’t changed too much. He was still traveling aimlessly with a bunch of misfits, trying to make enough coin to keep food in their bellies and the rain off their backs. But there was something new, and he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

For the first time in a long time, Molly felt like he might find what he was looking for. He listened to the gentle hush of the room. There was a new sort of calm that suffused him, independent of the liquor. And in a cramped inn, in a room ringed with silver, surrounded by his new companions, he found some rest.

**Author's Note:**

> The way Matt described it, Molly was basically drinking straight Fernet-Branca, which is an.....intense choice, given the size of the glass it was in. Nursing it is definitely the best option, but at 78 proof, he'd definitely be Feeling It at the end of a glass (for comparison, wine is typically 23-24 proof).
> 
> Find me on tumblr at lorettafryingpan (my fic blog is djinn-and-djuice), and talk to me about this slapdash bunch of weirdos. :)


End file.
